• Endgame WWII: could the Allies have defeated Hitler in 1944?
• Clive in India: a legacy of controversy
• Operation Hannibal: Germany’s ‘Little Dunkirk’
• Napoleon’s finest hour: the triumph of Austerlitz
• Unlocking victory: supplying the armies of the British Civil Wars
My ‘great site’ this month is one close to many people’s hearts. When I think of the locations that embody the best of Current Archaeology as a magazine and British archaeology as a community, I consistently alight on Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex. This site has it all – great coverage in the magazine, enthusiastic public engagement, stunning finds, and charismatic custodians.
The websites of upmarket estate agents will typically feature a dozen or more properties for sale in Sussex or Kent converted from 19th-century oast houses. These desirable residences once served a humbler purpose, drying the resinous hop flowers that are an essential ingredient in the nation’s beer. Patrick Grattan recorded the last of these buildings in use for that purpose in the 1960s, and his knowledge has fermented into a detailed history of the oast, as Chris Catling now reports.
When it was excavated in the 1960s, Fishbourne Roman Palace generated an archive that, for the time, was incredibly structured and detailed. However, by today’s standards, little attention was given to distribution of artefacts across the site, or relative locations…
REVIEW BY ALISTAIR BARCLAY This is the latest in a series of accessible and well-illustrated books by the author on the development of British Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery. In it, he shares his fascination for the subject in a…
REVIEW BY MATTHEW CHAMPION The history of the English parish church has long been of fascination to historians, buildings archaeologists, and the general public. As a result, the number of books on the subject published over the last two centuries…
REVIEW BY JAMES SAINSBURY The Rother Valley comprises a series of papers, compiled and edited by John Boardman and Ian Foster. The book covers the prehistoric archaeology and palaeoecology of the Rother in great detail, with a masterful contribution from…
Archaeologists working in north Abingdon have revealed evidence of one of our early human ancestors, as well as traces of ancient river systems, during preparation works for the new A34 interchange at Lodge Hill. Sixteen trial trenches were dug during…
Excavations at Oxford University’s Oriel College have helped to confirm the limits of the city’s Anglo-Saxon defences. Oxford first appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in AD 911 It was a burh, a fortified settlement, and while this entry does not…
Obsolete photographic formats can hold valuable or even unique information about ancient sites and artefacts. Such archives are, though, at increasing risk of being thrown out for being of no further use in a digital age. What can be done? Janice Kinory and Katharina Ulmschneider introduce us to a solution.
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Every year Professor Quinn has the task of sorting out applications from those wishing to study classics. Many of them say that they wish to study classics because Greece and Rome are ‘the roots of Western…
REVIEW BY TAYLOR DOWNING The military historian Peter Caddick-Adams has written this witty and enjoyable political biography of Winston Churchill. Unlike the multivolume authorised biography written mostly by Sir Martin Gilbert – which contained more than three million words –…
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
This little bird, found by a metal-detectorist in Corhampton/Meonstoke, Hampshire, was once a brooch. Dating to the 6th century, it measures just 20mm long and 10mm wide, weighing 4.06g. The brooch was cast from copper alloy, after which its surface…
Sadly, trains no longer stop at Adlestrop, the station that is the subject of Edward Thomas’ best-known poem. That was lost to the Beeching axe in 1966, but there are plenty of other places where you can read his poems…
The Culver Archaeological Project has been running for almost 20 years. Carly Hilts reviews a new exhibition exploring its discoveries at two major Roman sites in Sussex’s Upper Ouse Valley.
In 2019, a metal-detectorist made a startling discovery while exploring near the edge of a stream near Pulborough in West Sussex: two curved pieces of a golden torc dating to the Iron Age. After being reported to the local Finds…
•A 98-line papyrus text discovered at Gerza (ancient Philadelphia) in the Fayum has been deciphered by researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, and found to contain fragments of two lost tragedies written by the Greek playwright Euripides. •A poorly…
Archaeologists excavating an Anglo-Saxon monastery in Cookham have unearthed 23 intact human burials, along with the disturbed remains of multiple other individuals. The site, which has been excavated by the University of Reading since 2021 (see CA 392) with permission…
A summer excavation in the Oxfordshire village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell has revealed a Roman road lying beneath the local primary school’s field. Jason Debney, chairman of the local history society, recalled being told by a resident many years ago that the…
Your observations, your objections, and your opinions: send them to cwaletters@world-archaeology.com
In the last part of our series marking the 150th birthday of Winston Churchill, Taylor Downing examines his relationships with some of the brilliant mavericks who contributed to final victory during World War II.
With Marc DeSantis
A recent initiative has been working to restore the profile of the Uffington White Horse, a Bronze Age hill-figure in the care of the National Trust. When a drone survey (fundraised by David Miles and Simon Palmer, and undertaken by…
REVIEW BY NICOLA TRZASKA-NARTOWSKI Keeping up appearances seems to have been as much a part of the ritual of daily life in late Roman Britain as it is today. Combs are such personal items that it is not surprising that…
This intricately decorated early medieval harness pendant dates to AD 475-570, and was found in Quarley, Hampshire, on 13 July. It is made of copper-alloy, which has been cast and then gilded to achieve a gold finish. Pendants such as…
Excavations ahead of a new housing development in Banbury, Oxfordshire, have uncovered a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery of more than 50 burials, many of them richly furnished. These findings were recently announced by Border Archaeology, who excavated the 8,300m2 Calthorpe…
Lord Lisvane, former Clerk to the House of Commons and Chairman of the Royal College of Organists, sparked a lively correspondence in The Times earlier this year when he asked whether he was alone in deploring the popularity of ‘All…
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
REVIEW BY RP Unlike other books from the 50 Finds series, Kayt Hawkins’ volume explores objects that are grouped not by geographical location or chronological period, but instead collected as an assemblage under the broad theme of ‘childhood’. The majority…
REVIEW BY JIM LEARY Jack Cornish is Head of Paths at the British walking charity Ramblers and, like me, an advocate of old and lost paths, the overgrown and the abandoned. The Lost Paths charts some of Cornish’s journeys along…
REVIEW BY TIMOTHY DARVILL Archaeology is not just concerned with learning about the past – it is also about using our hard-won understandings to help inform the present and shape the future. Nowhere is this more urgent than with reference…
Research for a new experience that opened at Dover Castle this July has led to the discovery of a heavily graffitied door dating to the 1790s, revealing intriguing insights into the thoughts of the soldiers stationed there at that time.…
Rubina Raja & Søren M Sindbæk on archives and urban archaeology
This image shows a castle door, which was etched with some macabre graffiti by English soldiers during the Napoleonic era. The simple wooden plank door, from the top of a remote tower in Dover Castle, was rediscovered years ago, but…